


Once When I Was Dying

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Backstory, First Time, M/M, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 18:06:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1356979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beginnings of a Rodney/Ronon relationship that loosely follows the events of the first few episodes of season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once When I Was Dying

Rodney knows where he went wrong. Just because they’re in a distant galaxy exploring strange new worlds and going boldly where no Canadian has gone before does not mean his life is an episode of _Star Trek_. And despite her capacity for befriending the unfriendable, case in point himself, Teyla is not Geordi LaForge and Michael is not Hugh. Rodney has blood on his hands already—Gaul and Collins and, when he’s feeling particularly self-loathing, Grodin—but this is ridiculous. He’s responsible for the destruction of humanity. Rodney’s not solely responsible; he knows that. Elizabeth and Carson and Sheppard, they all flung themselves headfirst down the slippery slope alongside him. But none of them were quite so smug about it.

Not three hours ago he was bragging about his genius to the Wraith and feeling absurdly proud that he, Rodney McKay, was the first one in years, maybe even hundreds of them, to coax this level of efficiency from a hive ship. Rodney doesn’t know why he does that. Okay, if he’s honest with himself, yes he does. He learned long ago to hoard every scrap of praise that comes his way and to loudly invent some if none does. He settles back into his cocoon, its damp tendrils knitting ever more tightly around his chest, and listens to Ronon strain against his own bonds.

Rodney closes his eyes and he thinks, “High school, Billy Hale, grade eleven.” 

_Technically, Rodney should have been in ninth grade; according to Rodney, he should have been working on a post doc already, but his mother thought that socializing with people closer to his own age was vital to his mental health or something ludicrous such as that so there Rodney sat at the Hale’s dining room table, trying to teach Billy to solve word problems on velocity. Rodney thought it was a futile enterprise, but the Hales were paying him five dollars an hour and Billy was pretty to look at—long messy hair and sharp cheekbones—even if he was completely and hopelessly stupid._

_The fourth time Billy looked longingly out the window instead of putting pencil to paper, Rodney snapped, “What out there could you possibly find more fascinating than the slim hope you might graduate before you’re twenty five?”_

_Billy rolled his eyes. “Everything. But mostly the bike I can’t work on because I’m stuck in here with you.”_

_Rodney looked out the window at the Harley in the drive and then back to the pink curve of Billy’s lower lip. “If I fix your motorcycle, will you pay attention? I get a fifty dollar bonus if you pull a C instead of merely passing.”_

_Billy shrugged and Rodney spent the next three hours ruining his jeans on the concrete and smearing grease up both his forearms. When he was done, the bike ran like a dream, the engine turning over smoothly and practically purring underneath Billy when he took a spin around the block. Billy’s grin was blinding and he slapped Rodney on the back like Rodney had seen other boys do, the swift percussion of Billy’s hand against his skin a gesture that delighted Rodney more than he was willing to ever admit. “You still can’t talk to me at school,” Billy said and Rodney’s face flamed, his previous pleasure coiling in on itself until it was heavy in the pit of his stomach. But sometimes in the cafeteria, Billy would smile at him, that same wide smile like secretly they were friends, like secretly Rodney mattered and Rodney’s traitorous nerves thrilled every single time._

Of course, Rodney sits with the cool kids at lunch now. In fact, he supposes he is one of the cool kids. And he’s not sure why. Certainly saving the galaxy on a regular basis must contribute to his status. The cool kids do like to live. But why Sheppard should take him flying for no reason at all except for that they both enjoy it or why Ronon should care if a Wraith touches Rodney, he has no idea. But Rodney wants to know. And considering their imminent deaths, there’s really no reason for him not to ask. 

“Ronon,” he says. “What was that all about before? With the Wraith? And the ‘You don’t touch him?’”

Ronon stills. “He’s a Wraith, McKay,” he says, like that explains everything, and then starts grunting and pushing again at the slimy mess encasing him.

“And that means what exactly?” Rodney tries to gesture with his hands, but they’re stuck fast to his sides. “You don’t even like me.” Rodney is aware that he’s whining at this point but he’s going to die and so is everyone else he’s ever known and he’s strangely maddened that his first row ticket to Armageddon is so damn comfortable. The least Ronon could do is actually answer him.

“I like you, McKay,” Ronon says and then Rodney hears the slow and labored rip of Ronon’s cocoon and all he has time to think of for hours after is how to make his death matter. Sheppard shows up out of nowhere, naturally, and Rodney gratefully switches gears to finding a way for them all to live. 

On the Daedalus, Rodney imagines that he can actually perceive the air thinning, that the blues and greens and reds of the ship’s control panels grow more vivid as the atmosphere gradually depletes. He sees with acute clarity each pore on Radek’s forehead as he welds, the slight tremor in Colonel Caldwell’s torso as he struggles to breathe, the sharp bloom of blood on Lt. Johnson’s collar as she dies. Rodney feels much as he did at the bottom of the ocean waiting to suffocate; he expects to see Sam Carter at any moment, but she never comes. He remains grounded in reality, Ronon’s hand warm and large and spanning the whole of Rodney’s shoulder blade as he herds him into the transport group.

When Rodney has eaten, when he has showered, when he has slept for twelve blessedly uninterrupted hours, Rodney tracks down Ronon. He stands awkwardly in Ronon’s doorway, laptop clutched to his chest like a shield and says, “You want to watch TV?” Ronon shrugs and moves to let Rodney in. They sit on Ronon’s bed and Rodney hopes _Most Extreme Elimination Challenge_ is Ronon’s kind of television. They don’t talk, but finally Ronon starts laughing, from his belly and very much like the dork Rodney has often been accused of being. Rodney thinks then that a friendship with Ronon will be easier than he’d first imagined.

After that, things change between them. Rodney waits to eat breakfast each morning until Ronon and Sheppard have finished their run. Ronon wanders into the labs more and more, asking questions and generally proving himself less a Neanderthal than Rodney originally assumed. They don’t share their feelings or their life stories, but they talk about _Star Wars_ and Batman and weapons schematics, and every time Ronon crosses a room to stand silently beside him instead of someone else, Rodney feels that familiar buzz, that same surprised glee he’d once tried desperately to ignore.

Their next mission—the next that counts anyway, as Rodney steadfastly refuses to consider that episode with Lucius as anything other than a horrific dream—Rodney and Ronon walk shoulder to shoulder through the Gate. The forest is thick and lush and like the forests on every other planet with trees in this galaxy. Ronon seems more tense than usual, starting at every sound and scanning the underbrush with more fierce attention than he normally does. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place,” he says, which kicks the paranoia Rodney will admit only to himself into overdrive.

In the instant between the villagers shouting and an arrow puncturing his ass, Rodney can’t help the ridiculous thought, “Ha! So not paranoia.” In that split second, Ronon moves closer and Rodney turns to him, demanding an explanation and finding one in the grim line of Ronon’s mouth. Ronon grabs his arm and pulls him close, leaning in to speak, his beard brushing Rodney’s temple. Then Rodney is shocked by the unexpected pain of primitive weaponry lodged in his backside and whatever Ronon wanted to tell him is lost.

Rodney yells, “This is not happening!” But he doesn’t mean the arrow. What he means to say is, “You have these tattoos everywhere, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what a single one of them means. And now I’m dying and I never once asked.” For the whole painful sprint back to the Gate, Sheppard dragging him along as relentlessly as the agony radiating down his leg, Rodney sees Ronon’s face, guilt and sorrow and something like resignation in his expression. Rodney’s last thought before the undulating blue of the event horizon envelops him is of Ronon’s grip on his elbow and the bruises he knows he’ll later find there.

Carson eventually releases Ronon from the infirmary and Rodney waits a day before he visits. He doesn’t want to appear too eager, although he knows that what he’s really doing is stalling. Ronon looks like shit. His face is black and blue and a disgusting shade of green around the jaw line. He moves as if he is twenty years older. Rodney steps inside the room just enough for the doors to close and stands there awkwardly, his mouth opening and closing in what he knows is a ridiculous manner as he tries to speak.

“Look,” Rodney says. “I’ve never had much luck with this sort of thing, or really any at all, and you’ve never done anything to make me think that this time will be different, but I just wanted you to know . . . That is, for some time now, I’ve thought that maybe . . .” He stops to breathe, his hands moving in circles in front of him, and then Ronon smiles, sweetly and a little as if it pains him.

“You talk too much, McKay.” Then Ronon kisses him, almost chastely—just this brief press of chapped lips against his own. 

Rodney jerks back, surprised. “Really?” he says. “But why?”

Ronon rolls his eyes and fists his hands in Rodney’s shirt, hauling him to his chest, and kissing him wetly, opening Rodney and licking into him until they are both panting. “Oh,” Rodney says. “Oh.” 

Ronon is careful when he undresses Rodney, gentle as if Rodney is the one who just went three rounds with a Wraith. Rodney wants to be embarrassed when Ronon cups the soft flesh of his belly or when he pinches a nipple firmly between his finger and thumb, but the blatant desire on Ronon’s face prevents him. Rodney feels dazed, greedy, his hands scrabbling at Ronon’s pants until the laces give and he can reach inside. Ronon’s cock is thick and heavy in his hand and Rodney jerks him slowly, his thumb dragging over the wetness at the tip. Ronon comes silently, his spine a graceful curve and his hands bruising Rodney’s hips. Rodney licks his hand clean, wanting to taste, and Ronon makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat before he swallows Rodney down. Ronon’s mouth is hot and wet, the perfect suction, teeth scraping lightly on the upstroke, and Rodney doesn’t last long. 

Only when Rodney is nearly asleep, wedged between Ronon and the wall with just the barest scrap of blanket pulled over him does Ronon answer his question. “Because,” Ronon whispers sleepily into Rodney’s neck. “Because when I was dying, I thought of you.”


End file.
